Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin fielded questions from the media yesterday after practice about the offensive line and a certain phrase was used multiple times in his answers…”at a later date.”
Tomlin chose not to give definitive answers about Zach Banner’s health status, whether Dan Moore Jr was going to continue getting reps at left tackle or even start there in Week 1, and if Chuks Okorafor was going to start at right tackle.
The Fan Morning Show took inventory of the offensive line situation with the season less than two weeks away and were met with a strong dose of harsh reality.
“There aren’t a lot of later dates left,” said Colin Dunlap.
“They’ve got no clue what they’re doing right now.”
“They have six practices left. We’ve been talking about this since minicamps in June. We’ve been talking about how you need to find out who your starting five are, get them together, let them play together, let them work on the chemistry and cohesion, all of those things. And yet here we are,” said Chris Mack. “Now 12 days before the kick off to the season and the head coach is saying, ‘Yeah we’re going to move some pieces around and we’ll figure it out later.’”
Colin said he doesn’t want to exaggerate, he doesn’t want to cause panic, but said not it’s sensationalizing to say that they don’t know what’s happening with their line and it’s a problem.
“I was willing to get Chuks the benefit of the doubt,” said Jim Colony. “You want to talk about playing below the line, junior varsity, all the Tomlin-isms you want to throw out there…he’s been bad. They need to figure it out. I guess he OK last year at right tackle but he hasn’t been good enough.
Can Dan Moore Jr. be good enough at left tackle? I don’t know. Who else do they have? And if teams have good tackles that are capable, they aren’t going to get cut for the Steelers to get on the waiver wire.”
The guys say that Moore should be the starting left tackle and they should move forward with that plan. But the fact that they don’t have a set, starting offensive line in place at this point is problematic.
When show feedback suggested this was all an overreaction, Colin and Chris vehemently disagreed.
“How about reality here? It’s bothersome how many people take what the Steelers serve them and go, ‘OK, everything’s going to be fine.’ No, it’s not. This is panic mode because the Steelers let it get to panic mode,” said Dunlap.
“This is the one thing that can blow it all up before it even gets started. It’s either your 39 year old quarterback or your first round rookie running back get absolutely destroyed because the offensive line is a disaster. Right now, it may not be a disaster, but it certainly doesn’t look like they have what they want heading into Week 1.”
So has panic mode about this offensive line set in for you yet?